for fast work that made AP first to confirm, report on and shoot video and photos on the day that Rio councilwoman Marielle Franco, an outsider politician and fierce critic of police brutality, was gunned down. https://yhoo.it/2HUgO5S
teamed up with colleagues elsewhere in the country to provide multiformat coverage of the release by Grand Rapids, Michigan, police of video showing the April 4 shooting death of motorist Patrick Lyoya. Video showed Lyoya, a Black man, facing the ground when he was fatally shot in the back of the head by a police officer after a traffic stop, a brief foot chase and struggle over a stun gun.In addition to APâs spot coverage and video analysis, distinctive enterprise in ensuing days examined a gap in the police officerâs body camera video, an explainer on what prosecutors will use to determine any charges, and how police stops of Black people are often filled with fear and anxiety and can end in deadly use of force.Read more
When Ronald Greene died in 2019, Louisiana State Police troopers initially blamed the Black manâs death on injuries from a crash at the end of a high-speed chase, then later said Greene became unresponsive in a struggle with troopers and died on his way to the hospital.
For the most part, that was all the public would know about the case, until APâs Jim Mustian took up the story. Since he began reporting nine months ago, heâs broken a string of stories revealing there was more to the story. But Mustian always knew he needed to get his hands on one crucial piece of evidence: video.
This past week, Mustian did just that. In the most explosive break yet in the case, Mustian obtained body camera footage that showed Greene repeatedly apologizing and pleading for mercy as troopers jolted him with stun guns, put him in a choke hold, punched him and dragged him by his ankle shackles. The story led national newscasts and websites, and fronted newspapers across the country, with credit to APâs reporting and the video, again and again.
This scoop was the work of one dogged investigative reporter who never stopped believing that the world should know what really happened to Ronald Greene. For that we honor Jim Mustian with APâs Best of the Week award.
In a classic case of keeping an open mind during reporting, APâs Jim Mustian and Kim Chandler started out reporting one story, but found themselves reporting exclusively that an Alabama state trooper, arrested on charges he raped an 11-year-old girl, had used a forged letter and lied on his application to get hired after being removed from the FBI — also on serious allegations of sexual misconduct.
To federal law enforcement reporter Mustian, this initially appeared as yet another case of the FBI allowing an accused agent to quietly move on with his career. But just as he was about to publish, the FBI said the bureau letter Christopher Bauer submitted to Alabama authorities when he was hired was ânot legitimate.â Meanwhile, Chandler, Montgomery statehouse reporter, tracked down Bauerâs application for the trooper job, in which he said he was still employed by the FBI and had never been forced to resign because of disciplinary action.
This had become the story of a former agent, and perhaps others, falsifying his record. The piece was among the weekâs top stories on AP News, with nearly 200,000 pageviews.
For deep reporting that followed the story wherever it took them, Mustian and Chandler earn this weekâs Best of the States award.
From major breaking news in the U.S. to unmatched international enterprise reporting, two very different entries — worlds apart but united by excellence — produce a rare joint winner for APâs Best of the Week.
First, APâs teamwork delivered unmatched breaking and explanatory cross-format coverage around the verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial, a case that framed the conversation on race and policing. Then, the trio of Cara Anna, Nariman El-Mofty and Mohaned Awad produced a riveting package on a Tigray fatherâs harrowing journey with his newborn twins, a stark illustration of the devastating war in Ethiopiaâs Tigray region.
For powerful journalism that defines the range and depth of APâs global coverage, the all-formats teams behind this compelling work share APâs Best of the Week honors.
The moment opposition leader Alexei Navalny was arrested upon his return to Moscow, APâs Russia team knew the weekendâs protests would be big.
Working in sub-zero temperatures, AP teams in every format, from the Russian Far East to the big cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg, delivered exceptional work capturing the scale and intensity of the protests — and the violent crackdown by police.
Excellent planning, experience and a wide network of freelancers across the countryâs 11 time zones were among the factors that gave AP the edge over the competition.
For determined, insightful coverage that captured the scope and political significance of the movement, the team of Tanya Titova, Alexander Zemlianichenko, Mstyslav Chernov, Kostya Manenkov, Dmitri Lovetsky, Pavel Golovkin, Daria Litvinova, Jim Heintz, Kirill Zarubin and Yulia Alekseyeva wins APâs Best of the Week honors.
With weeks to prepare, the Louisville, Kentucky, news staff and all-formats reinforcements from other AP bureaus were well positioned for the closely watched grand jury decision in the Breonna Taylor case.
When the announcement finally came â no officers charged with Taylorâs death â the breaking news was expedited to the wire, cutting through confusion over the decision. Video and photo coverage excelled with fast edits and filing from the protests that followed, capturing the anguish and despair expressed by many in Louisville and keeping the AP well ahead of other agencies.
For their fast, in-depth work on a sensitive, highly competitive story, the team of Lovan, Schreiner, Blackburn, Galofaro, Minchillo, Cummings, Morrison and Householder wins this weekâs Best of the States award.
This week two distinctly different bodies of work share APâs weekly honors for their outstanding coverage:
An all-formats team in Minsk, Belarus, facing constant police intimidation, continued to provide extensive coverage of mass protests over the nationâs disputed presidential election. That work included exclusive video of a bloody protester falling to the ground dead in front of heavily armed police, footage that forced the government to reverse its narrative of the incident.
And in work of a different dimension entirely, New Delhi photographer Altaf Qadri spent many months documenting life along the 1,700-mile River Ganges, considered sacred by almost 1 billion Hindus in India.
Starting with a treacherous two-day hike to the foot of the Himalayas â the remote source of the Ganges â and ending in the fast disappearing mangrove forests of the Sundarbans, Qadri captured a breathtaking range along his odyssey: celebration and death, solitude and fellowship, daily life and holy rites.
For extraordinary work in enterprise and spot news journalism, Altaf Qadri and the Belarus team of Mstyslav Chernov, Sergei Grits, Yuras Karmanau, Dimitri Kozlov and Dmitri Lovetsky share APâs Best of the Week award.
In the course of covering protests and a memorial service for George Floyd in Minneapolis, AP race and ethnicity writer Aaron Morrison started thinking about other cases that began over minor offenses and ended with a black person dying. Morrison visited the scene where Floyd took his last breaths, talked to members of Floydâs family and interviewed protesters with this question in mind:
What is a black life worth?
AP video journalist Noreen Nasir, also in the Twin Cities, was picking up on the same theme in her own reporting. Joined by New York-based photographer Bebeto Matthews, the team took a deep and unflinching look the at the circumstances behind Floydâs death, and what many see as a pivotal moment in the struggle against institutional racism. Their story led the AP News site, was featured at the launch of the Facebookâs News Feed and was widely used by AP members.
For sharp reporting and analysis that cast George Floydâs killing in light of systemic issues of race inequality, Morrison, Nasir and Matthews win APâs Best of the Week award.
The story of George Floydâs death will likely endure as a pivotal moment in civil rights and police accountability, but his life â from a start in Houston public housing to his death in Minneapolis, where he hoped to start a new chapter â wasnât lived in a spotlight.
In a uniquely AP collaboration across states and disciplines, AP journalists turned to people who knew Floyd from his childhood through his adult years, weaving together his story in all formats, enhanced by existing video of the man. The result was a revealing, deeply reported profile, including Floydâs brief turns as a football player, rapper and bouncer, time in prison and days spent trying to help mentor kids to avoid his mistakes.
For persistent, collaborative and creative storytelling that goes to the heart of the tragedy that unfolded in Minneapolis, the multiformat team of Luis Andres Henao, Juan Lozano, Nomaan Merchant, Adam Geller, John Mone, David Phillip and Aaron Morrison shares this weekâs Best of the States award.
The end of May saw unprecedented news: The coronavirus pandemic continued to spread infection and wreak economic havoc around the globe, while much of the worldâs attention pivoted suddenly to protests across the U.S. that spread to Paris, London, Australia and elsewhere after the suffocation death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25.
This weekâs Best of the Week recognizes APâs work surrounding each of those mega-stories, with top honors going to Baltimore-based photographer Julio Cortez for his iconic photo of a protester holding an American flag aloft, and to the AP all-formats team in Brazil for continuing coverage of the virus in a nation being ravaged by COVID-19.
On the campaign trail, presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar has often cited a case â a life sentence given to black teen for killing a young girl â as proof of her tough-on-crime bona fides as a former prosecutor.
Over the course of a year, Minnesota-based investigative reporter Robin McDowell examined the case against Myon Burrell, who was 16 when he was sentenced to life in prison for the 2002 death of 11-year-old Tyesha Edwards.
McDowell found major irregularities, including inconsistent evidence and questionable police tactics. The resulting package had impact, forcing new scrutiny of the case and Klobucharâs handling of it.
For dogged reported that shed new light and focused attention on the case against a man who has long said he was wrongfully convicted, McDowell wins this weekâs Best of the States award.
for dominating agency coverage â video and photos â of clashes between Hong Kong police and anti-extradition protesters who gathered around Hong Kongâs Legislative Council complex on June 12.
Only AP was live when the first scuffle broke out between police and protesters early that morning. And when more violent clashes erupted, only APâs Wober captured dramatic ground footage as protesters started throwing objects at police who eventually used tear gas, rubber bullets and other measures to disperse the crowds. The dramatic unmatched 30-minute clip was widely used by major clients, including Hong Kongâs own South China Morning Post.
Photographers Yu and Cheung, meanwhile, worked tirelessly from late the previous night, as protesters staked out positions, and through the next day as the protests grew and were eventually shut down. Prominent photo play included the front of Time magazine and The Times of London.https://bit.ly/2XmPRDjhttps://bit.ly/2FiU6W3https://bit.ly/2x7tzXu
When police busted several massage parlors engaging in prostitution in Florida in February, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft drew all the attention, but hundreds of other men were also charged in what seemed like a new approach for Florida authorities.
AP Florida reporters Mike Schneider, Orlando, and Terry Spencer, West Palm Beach, seized on the Kraft-driven attention to dig into legal issues surrounding massage parlors and prostitution in Florida. With a deep dive into state records and a key interview with a local source, the pair landed an AP Exclusive that showed a change in strategy: Usually only low-level massage therapists were arrested. Owners were rarely charged and typically faced only fines and probation. Johns typically were not charged at all.
But the recent investigation had instead focused heavily on the possibility of widespread human trafficking. Several spa owners were charged with felonies, and authorities also charged 300 men accused of being patrons, including Kraft and the former president of Citigroup. The Martin County sheriff told Spencer that he wanted to shut down the sex-massage industry in part by targeting the demand side.
Strong play included prominent display in The Washington Post.
For their enterprising use of state records and source-building to find an AP Exclusive in a story that drew enormous global attention, Schneider and Spencer win this weekâs Best of States award.
for breaking the news that U.S. officials had accused New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio and his police security detail of violating both US and Mexican law by crossing the border on foot during a visit near El Paso, Texas. https://bit.ly/2L7vq8a
The arrest of two black men at a Starbucks in Philadelphia for sitting without ordering anything turned into a major crisis for the coffee chain and sparked a national conversation on unconscious bias and overt racism.
But the two men at the center of the controversy sought to maintain their privacy as they tried to make sense of the ordeal. They even moved to a hotel to hide out as the scandal unfolded with numerous interview requests to tell their story.
Knowing the sit-down with the men was essential, Pennsylvania Editor Larry Rosenthal pressed for an interview, noting that one conversation with AP would relieve the pressure they were feeling from so many outlets. Errin Haines Whack, the APâs national race and ethnicity writer, followed up with a written pitch. She noted she was based in Philly and wanted to hear both their version of events and what they hoped to see moving forward. In the end, that sealed the deal.
For landing the critical interview and delivering it in multiple formats, Whack is this weekâs winner of Best of the States.
for breaking the news that a policeman and two school counselors agreed in 2016 that Nikolas Cruz should be committed to a mental institution, a recommendation that was never acted upon and might have barred the Parkland massacre suspect from buying weapons. https://bit.ly/2ucnD0E
Ahead of the Olympics, an AP team in Rio wanted a close look at the city's slums, which have long been plagued with violence, to learn whether high-profile community policing programs are working in areas deemed `pacified.' Braving gunfire in what is considered a no-go area for reporters, AP produced up-close, all-formats coverage showing deadly violence continues to flare.
Ben Finley, Mid-Atlantic/Norfolk correspondent, Joe Mandak, reporter, Pittsburgh, and Ben Nuckols, Mid-Atlantic/Washington reporter, for their reporting after John Hinckley ...
for the first interview with the Minnesota police chief after one of his officers shot and killed a black motorist during a traffic stop. http://apne.ws/2bgNOVN